The art patron Shah Rukh was partial to historical subjects and natural color, but his son Baysanghur preferred a small painting format accompanied by stylish calligraphy and clear, bright primary colors made from the finest ground metallic-oxide pigments. These small-scale figures, exquisite colors, and exacting draftsmanship typify Timurid-period paintings, and this work represents the Baysanghur style at its best. The Chahar Magaleh, or Four Discourses, is also known as The Mirror for Princes. In a series of anecdotes this twelfth-century text describes the four advisors an Islamic prince required—a scribe, a poet, an astrologer, and a physician.